The Life and Times of Caleb Atticus Thomas, Cat
by Canadino
Summary: A cat of my caliber should be able to hold your attention with this narrative. POV of Caleb the cat from Airwaves; army!AU, Jack/Simon


**Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the story idea and only some of the witty remarks. I own so little; so please don't steal.**

Background music: -

[=]

The Life and Times of Caleb Atticus Thomas the Fifth

My owners are alright. Granted, one of them isn't around most of the time, but the other one is good at making sure I'm living a very good life – as good as a cat of my caliber can, of course. He scratches behind my ears at the very spot I like and he makes sure I'm nice and warm at night and he lets me sit on the couch or the bed or wherever I like, unlike other people who confine their pets in one spot. But as I said before, I am a cat of a certain caliber and I should be treated that way.

My name is Caleb Atticus Thomas the Fifth, although my owner calls me Caleb because he can't manage the full name. Not every human can manage to care for a cat like me, but he does it well with poise and sophistication. He treats me like another human, which I appreciate over the alternative – a common household cat. Because I am _not_ a common household cat.

I don't quite understand why he left me alone in the apartment though. My owner has been tottering around the place lately very happy and flush-faced and whenever he picks me up, he always says silly things like, "Daddy's coming home, Caleb! He's coming back!" I pawed him in the face to stop him from cooing like a lovestruck she-cat, but he only laughed and put me back on the floor, where I left him with my tail in the air to go sit on the warming grate. Usually he displaces me, saying I have to leave the grate alone so the flat can get warmer but he's been in such a good mood that he let me sleep there.

So now I'm waiting in front of the door, waiting for him to get home so I can nip him at the ankles as punishment for neglecting me and perhaps to welcome the redhead owner back and suggest very subtly with loud mews and pawing that I have yet to be fed lunch.

The door opens and I start to mew but my owners don't even seem to notice me. In fact, they are having a hard time actually getting in, the way they're tripping over themselves like that. The ginger one throws his bags on the floor, very close to where I am sitting. I don't like that. He's wearing the same green, black, and brown clothing he wore when he left that last time. He appears to be trying to lick my other owner's face off as he closes the door. I meow loudly to try to get their attention again. Cats like me do not deserve to be ignored!

Usually the dark-haired owner has pretty good balance but he can't even seem to stand straight. I follow them as they stumble deeper into the apartment, throwing off their clothes in the process. I don't understand humans sometimes. They get offended when other humans take off their clothes on the big, flashing box and they complain in papers when other humans run around naked, but they like to get naked in their houses too. I screech in indignation when the ginger's clothes fly through the air and land on me. What cheek! I knew there was a reason I didn't mind he wasn't home too often.

"Sorry, Caleb," the dark-haired owner says breathlessly, somewhere past the void of the clothes, which I am still trying to struggle my way out of. Plebeians. "Jack," he says, completely forgetting about me as I mewl for help. "Wait…hold on…"

"You're telling me," the ginger, Jack, says, in between licking my dark-haired owner's face some more – honestly, even cats don't slobber over each other like animals – "that I should stop doing this when I haven't seen you in months – years, even? Forget the cat. What's with your clothes?"

The dark-haired owner, Simon, giggles as I free myself from ginger's stupid clothes. They smell like dirt and something unpleasant. He probably rolls around in mud, the stupid human. "I couldn't come get you naked, could I?"

"That would have been preferable," Jack says, and I wrinkle my perfectly pink nose at their state of undress. Humans are quite pink and silly-looking without clothes. They wobble against each other into the room with the big, comfortable bed and shut the door behind them. Insolent humans! I have yet to be fed! I scratch at the door (Simon's wherewithal has made him take me to the man in the white coat to remove my claws) and scold them in the firmest meows I can but they ignore me again. My sensitive cat ears hear Simon's voice and he sounds like he is in pain. The ginger is always trying to hurt my _real_ owner in all the worst possible ways. But this big, stupid, wooden door is in the way.

They seem satisfied to let me be, unattended to and hungry. They will pay for their daring. I will pretend to have forgotten all about the sandbox and do my business wherever I please. The ginger will probably rave and rant at me but he can't throw me out.

[=]

They finally remember me the next morning, because when Simon opens the bed room door, he sees me grumpily grooming myself in plain sight and he says, "Oh my god, Caleb! I forgot to feed you last night!"

_Yes, you did_, I meow sternly at him, and he rushes into the kitchen to get my food. I'm touched that he would think of me this early in the morning and he has gone to feeding me without even putting on all his clothes. He puts my food bowl down in only a shirt, a shirt that is too big for him. I rub against his leg and try to tell him to get his clothing sized.

He doesn't understand my message and just smiles at me. Well, it's not that I have a problem with Simon. He is the good owner. The ginger one, though…

"You left me alone to feed the cat?" He comes out of nowhere, the fool, and grabs Simon from behind. Sneak attacks are only for cowards. I shoot him an icy glare from behind my food. He doesn't notice. The ginger is wearing ugly underwear with an island print. How gaudy. Simon jumps, but he lets the ginger keep his arms around his waist and rest his chin on his shoulder.

"I forgot," Simon says sarcastically. "Over there, you don't have pets to take care of."

"Hmm," the ginger murmurs. Simon turns in his arms and they lick each other's faces again. Honestly. I am trying to eat my morning meal. The ginger's hands try to grab at Simon's butt but my owner smartly slaps his hands away.

"What do you want for breakfast?" he asks instead, extracting himself from the ginger and walking to the box that makes fire. The ginger watches him, before looking down at me. I stare at him with my beady, intimidating cat eyes. He squats and scratches behind my ears where I like it. The idiot may be an idiot, but he has some redeeming qualities, I guess.

They sort of make me feel a little guilty when he steps in a puddle of my business that I've left him, but not enough.

[=]

My owners are as follows: Simon Green, my primary owner. He has dark hair and dark eyes and is actually cat-like, now that I think about it. He doesn't talk much but when he does, it's usually very smart and scathing. If I were a human, which I would be aghast at regressing to such a state of life, I think I would want to be his friend. He cares about everyone he knows and he is a very nice human. I am glad to be his cat.

Jack Merridew is my secondary owner. Usually he appears on that flat box on the desk that is shiny. Simon sometimes talks to the box when the ginger is not at home. I wonder how he goes out the door and into that box? Simon told me one time that the ginger goes over oceans to fight for us, but that box is right there. I don't understand him sometimes.

And when the ginger is here in the apartment, he monopolizes Simon's time. When they eat breakfast together, they only look at each other like they haven't seen each other in eons, even though they talk with the box. I am finished with my food (a refined cat does not polish his food dish) and I stare at them from the floor, but they do not look at me once. He doesn't strike me as a very fascinating human at all. He has red hair that isn't as pretty as the ginger tom a couple blocks down from the bread store. He has dots on his face.

Somehow he makes Simon laugh. I cock my head. He is telling stories of things that happen to him in a place that sounds like he's made up the name. Simon isn't a big eater to begin with, but if the ginger keeps distracting him like that, he's going to be too skinny. Let my owner eat, fool! I nudge his leg to make him stop talking.

"What is it, Caleb?" he asks, glancing past the table. "Simon fed you already."

A refined cat does not always think of his stomach! I enjoy the greater things in life. So what if I am a little pudgy. "Go out to the living room," Simon says, shooing me away politely. I give him a pointed look. I am only looking out for his wellbeing. If he wishes to waste away as thin as can be, that is his decision. I leave them to ogle at each other in the kitchen. Humans are foolish creatures.

[=]

There is a human that comes by often. He has yellow hair and a constant smile on his face. Simon calls him Ralph Castilian. Jack calls him _that man_.

Ralph has keys to the apartment and he uses them to get in this morning. He just opens the door and walks in. "What's up, Caleb!" he calls to me, and I nod in greeting. He is a tolerable human, because he acknowledges me and sometimes brings me fish, which he sneaks in past Simon because apparently I have "a weight problem". I have no idea where he could have gotten that notion. Today he doesn't give me food immediately so I follow him back to the kitchen, where he is standing in the doorway. "Jack! You're back!"

"Disappointed?" the ginger says, looking angry. "Visit often in the mornings, don't you?" He doesn't look at all embarrassed like the people in the big flashing box do when they are caught without clothes. He just looks mad. I sit at Ralph's feet, waiting for a treat.

"Yeah, all the time," Ralph says, tossing his head. "Sometimes I stay over, if you know what I mean." I do not remember a time when Ralph stayed in the apartment overnight, but somehow this upsets the ginger even more. Simon looks amused from over his cup. "I can tell I'm unwanted here," Ralph continues, scooping me up in a very haphazard way. I don't like being carried by him. He may drop me, and I am a very fragile cat. "I will wait outside with Caleb while you two have a quickie and actually get some clothes on."

He turns and carries me out to the balcony as I hear Simon and the ginger whisper things back in the kitchen. There is a chilly wind outside. My silky fur is not meant to be ruffled like this. I am about to scratch holes in Ralph's sweater but he takes out some dried fish and silences me.

He knows his way to a cat's heart, bless him.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if Ralph stayed at the apartment instead of the ginger. Sometimes I think it would be a good thing. He is actually around all the time. I have never seen him make Simon cry, which my owner does sometimes after he turns off the shiny box on the desk. He respects me much more than the ginger does, at least. That is very important. But it wouldn't be the same. As much as I enjoy munching on these snacks he gives me, I suppose it wouldn't be the same. Simon does not look at him like he looks at the ginger. I am just a cat. I can't make these humans do as I wish.

"Alright, get back in here," the ginger says, opening the balcony door. He is wearing clothes again. Ralph turns and nearly jostles me out of his arms. I leap skillfully to the floor. Being carted around by him makes my stomach turn. He does not know how to carry a cat, a trait that the ginger possesses. So all is right with the world.

From what I understand, Jack, Simon, and Ralph all went to what humans call a 'school'. It is a place where human kits gather to learn things. My owners and Ralph do not look like kits. This must have been a while ago. But sometimes they still act like kits. They sit around and talk and make jokes at each other. Sometimes the ginger reaches over and smacks Ralph across the head. Now, refined cats do not do such things; I remember only indulging in such festivities when I was still with my littermates. Humans are mysterious creatures. I sit on the shelf and watch them in my little domain.

"So how long are you staying for?" Ralph asks. He is sitting in a chair by himself while the ginger and Simon cuddle on the couch. I _believe_ they are the human equivalents of what we cats refer to as 'mates'. That is the vibe I get from them and my feline intuition is rarely off the mark. After all, they occasionally live together until the ginger goes back into the talking box on the desk. And they like to lick each other. A lot.

"Two weeks," Jack replies curtly, his thumb tracing circles on the back of Simon's hand. "That was a roundabout way of asking when you could make passes at Simon again."

"I'm flattered that you still consider me worthy of being your rival," Ralph scoffs. "But I think even Christine would disapprove of me trying to get in Simon's pants. Oh yeah! You didn't meet her yet." He digs into his pockets and I perk up; he may pull out another snack. But he instead takes out the brown folding thing that holds money and cards. He shows my owners a picture of a dark-haired woman.

"She's a very nice girl," Simon adds.

"Dark hair," Jack comments. From as long as I can remember, the ginger has always been touchy with Ralph. He is a very territorial human. Ever since that one time when they were drinking that smelly red juice and Simon had fallen asleep and Ralph had said that when they were at school, he had liked Simon once, the ginger has always treated him like the enemy. Simon slaps his head.

"Don't be stupid," he says, and he licks the ginger's face. I am in favor of Ralph, who draws his hands up to his face dramatically and yells, "Get a room!" The ginger shows him his long finger and turns to lick Simon's face in return. Yes; my owners are an overly affectionate pair.

[=]

My earliest memory of Simon and the ginger is back when I was still at the animal house. I was still with a couple of my littermates and we were always trying to get humans to take us away. I don't really remember why we were so eager to be taken away from the animal house, because we were taken care of very well by the human who was in charge. My littermates and I were given a space next to a window where humans walked by all the time. Whenever we saw any human, we always clamored and pawed and acted very cute. Human kits would press their faces against the glass and look at us. The grown-up humans either paid us little mind or looked and walked away.

Anyway, one day, my littermates and I were rough-housing (this was before the time of my refined cathood, mind you) when these two humans walked past the window. I remember thinking that one of them had very unruly red fur coming out the top of his head. I had not yet understood the ways of humans that they only have fur in particular parts of their bodies. This was fascinating. Not many humans had red hair. I climbed over to the window and stared up at them. The human next to him, latched onto his arm, bent down to inspect me and make the typical faces that human kits make at us kittens.

The next moment later, the human in charge of the animal house picked me up and before I knew it, I was outside on the side of the window were humans were and my littermates were pawing in my direction and I was nestled in Simon's arms and I have never gone back to the animal house ever since.

[=]

Simon has a job at a place that makes him come home smelling like "coffee". He can't take off just because the ginger is home so he has to leave. The ginger is a boring human to stay with and he usually wanders off during the day, so I am allowed to roam the hallways of the apartment complex we live in. There are not many other pets that live here, so I am a very special cat. The human in charge of the apartments is an old woman who always calls me Keith even though Simon has told her my name is Caleb (Atticus Thomas the Fifth).

There is this man who lives in the apartment who uses the moving box to get to our floor. He is one of the ginger's friends. He doesn't come by as often as Ralph, because he is usually off fixing pipes. He is the apartment complex's handyman. His name is Roger Doloris.

There are these two humans on our floor that look the same. They live a couple doors down from us. Lately, I have noticed that Roger has to go to their room a lot. Today as I make my daily rounds to ensure that no foreign invader has decided to settle in my space, I see Roger standing outside the door with his box of tools. One of the twins is standing in the doorway. "Ah," the twin says – for the nine lives of me, I cannot tell which is which – "thank you for coming…"

"You're welcome, but I would think Sam considers it a bother that you're always clogging up the sinks with random things." I settle on the itchy, bothersome hallway carpet to observe. A king of his territory has to know the going-ons of everyone in it. The twin, Eric, flushes straight up to his roots. "No," Roger continues, feigning ignorance, "I didn't notice that the things I flushed out seemed a bit too suspicious to be found in a drain. Normally, someone doesn't drop a box of paperclips in their bathroom sink. One, maybe, but not about twenty."

"That was…" The twin bites his lip and I think if his face gets any redder, it will surpass the ginger's hair. Roger shifts weight on his feet and the tools in the black box clatter. My delicate ears do not like the sound of colliding metal. I paw the ground in irritation but neither of them notice.

"Dinner tomorrow at seven, then?" Roger says. I, for one, am surprised at this offer. I feel a kinship with Roger because he reminds me of a tiger. I would have suspected he would carry the twin off and eat him in peace, but I suppose that is not what humans do. Just when I think he is extremely out of character, he smiles in a very predatorial way. The natural wild instinct within me purrs.

"Yes," the twin says, a little quicker than humans do. From what I witness with Simon and the ginger, one mate should never give in too easily. Simon always makes the ginger work to get something (usually a long licking session); the ginger leaves and stays in the shiny box on the desk for long periods of time. This is almost too easy for Roger, even in human standards. Roger leans forward – a precursor to licking – and the twin notices me watching them from a distance away. "Oh, it's Simon's cat…"

Roger ignores this and licks him anyway. After a while, the twin licks him back. I turn my back to them and stroll back to my room. The problem with humans is that once they start licking each other, they stop paying attention to more important things; me, for example.

[=]

When Simon goes to the grocery store, he can take me along because he is friends with the human in charge of the store (although my feline instincts say that the human is just trying to mate with my owner). I recline in the cat seat of the metal cart, though I don't understand what the two big holes are for. I could fall out. Nevertheless, he walks around, pushing the creaky, bumpy contraption and picks out things to put in the cart. I yawn. I smell plenty of tasty things, but as a refined cat, I do not act on instinct.

When we walk past the box aisle (there are a lot of aisles at the grocery store; the can aisle, the bottle aisle, the box aisle, the shiny meat aisle…), we pass this human that I have seen around before. I believe he is Ralph's friend. He wears glasses and is hefty. "Hi, Pygmalion," Simon greets, with a smile. That is the trickiest ploy of his to avoid; he easily makes other humans want to mate with him by being friendly and nice. I have a crafty owner. Pygmalion (or Piggy, as decreed by the ginger) nods.

We meet eyes, and he nods at me too. Although I am not admitting I have a weight problem, we bond over our similar outward appearances. He is not furry, so he does not have other humans saying how cute he is. It pays to be furry sometimes. I send a meow his way. Afterwards, he will probably drop some catnip over my way. Many of my owner's friends know to get on my good side. The ginger needs to take some lessons on this.

[=]

A couple years ago, the ginger told Simon over dinner that he was thinking of joining something called 'the army'. He said he felt it was his calling and that the place we were living in was going to go to war soon and if their generation of humans didn't do something, the fighting might spill over to their kits. "If we try and finish it up quickly, maybe we'll be able to get things done," he said.

Simon took it relatively well. He did not cry or plead or anything pathetic. I watched him over my water bowl. He just smiled lightly and asked the ginger what he had been doing about it. I think the ginger thought Simon was going to make a fuss about it, because he looked like a deer in headlights. He took out some papers and talked and talked. Simon took the papers too and read them. I noticed his hands were shaking slightly. I twitched my tail.

"I'm not trying to get away from you," the ginger said suddenly, and I tipped my ears up at this sudden change in tone. "I don't want to leave you here, but…I just…it's something I have to do…you know?" This was one of the very few times I had heard Jack talk so quietly. Usually he booms around the house and hurts my ears. He put the papers down and reached over to take Simon's hands.

"I know," Simon murmured, looking at their hands. I thought they were going to start licking each other, but surprisingly, they just sat there for a long time in silence, just holding each other's hands. Even I didn't do anything; but when my nose itched and I sneezed, they blinked and glossed over the issue. I didn't know Jack finally got into the army until the day came when he walked around the house in those green, brown, and black clothes and Simon came back home alone.

[=]

Today the ginger is wearing the green, brown, and black clothes again. He is putting stuff in his big bag. Simon is watching him from the bed with the same melancholy expression he has whenever he talks to the ginger with the shiny box on the desk. "How long will it be this time?" he asks.

"I don't know; I'm not sure, really. I really hope the war will be over soon. I'm sure we'll make way eventually." He zips up the bag and straightens up. I walk into the room and jump onto the bed, settling myself on Simon's lap. He strokes my fur slowly, thoughtfully. I hate these moments. They make me restless but I sit there like the refined cat that I am. "I'll come back," the ginger says, but he always says that. "I'm not going to leave you here by yourself."

"You'd better," Simon retorts, like he always does. "If you don't, I'll look elsewhere. You know that." Human defense mechanisms are interesting. While a cat will either run or arch its back and hiss, my owner does both. He tries to dodge the pain by retreating but he also jabs back. The ginger lets out a breath and a crooked grin. "And, and…I'll take Caleb and move and you'll never see me, and if anything happens, I'll…"

There are a couple of words that get humans riled up and scream or cry. Some of those things are mean and spiteful. Some of those things are lies. Humans like to fuss over things like words. The ginger is a prime example of this. But then he whips just three of them out like you wouldn't expect. He just says them, and Simon cries. When my owner cries, I almost cry, since he never does it.

The army has a van to pick up its humans. At the door, Simon holds me like he's got nothing else. They lick each other for a while, which is expected. Then the ginger pats my head. "Hold down the fort, Caleb," he says. "Make sure everything's okay while I'm gone." I purr. I wouldn't be called Caleb Atticus Thomas the Fifth if I didn't.

[=]

Note: I don't know. This just came out.


End file.
